Russell Atkinson's Blog, page 93
May 9, 2016
No Cherokee in me
I just got my genetic results back from 23andMe. I have 0% Native American (i.e. American Indian) genetic markers. I’m 99+% European. That squelches a rumor I heard from a genealogist/distant relative that one of our common ancestors was a Cherokee Indian who Anglicized his name. I do have quite a lot of Neanderthal in me, though, more than 85% of the 23andMe population. I also carry a recessive gene for a nasty disease that I’ve never heard of before. No one in my family has that disease so far as I am aware.
The results were moderately interesting, but held fewer surprises than I expected. A lot of what they said I could tell by looking in the mirror (complexion, hair, eye color, no dimples, etc.) Some of it was actually “wrong,” i.e. the genes said I was likely to have something I didn’t have or vice versa, but for all of those traits, it wasn’t a 100% correspondence.
Comments enabled
Long ago I disabled the comment feature of this blog because I was getting so many spam comments. I decided to try opening it up again for comments, so if you feel so inclined, go ahead and comment on this or any other post. You can always reach me personally by clicking About the Author/Contact link at the top and filling in the form.
May 8, 2016
May 5, 2016
No more Saudi Arabia?
One thing this video barely hints at: the possibility that the western world may soon cut its ties with Saudi Arabia and the other hateful, Stone Age oil-producing countries of the Middle East that we now have to pretend we’re friends with. We can leave it all to ISIS or Al Qaeda. The Israelis can take care of themselves. We can finally stop going to war over there. When their oil becomes as valueless as their sand, we can rejoice. Buy an electric car!
Will Shortz Picks His Favorite Puzzles
The New York Times Will Shortz Picks His Favorite Puzzles: 101 of the Top Crosswords from The New York Times by Will Shortz
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The puzzles Shortz has chosen are indeed quality puzzles with clever clues and a very unique twist or theme. We expect this much from the NYT. However, I’m a little disappointed that they are mostly chosen for the art of the puzzlemaker rather than the enjoyment of the solver. It’s like a musician who chooses music based on the technical brilliance of the performer or the original nature of the composition rather than whether or not it sounds good. I create crosswords, too, and really appreciate the difficulty in making some of these work, such as having all the clues form a sentence with their first letters. Clever, but the solver doesn’t know this while solving and the cleverness is largely lost on those of us who work the puzzles. There also aren’t very many in the book. It’s so thin it isn’t even stout enough to serve as a surface to work the puzzles on. You have to work on a table or brace the book against your knee if in bed or a recliner. Notwithstanding these shortcomings, I am enjoying it a great deal.
May 3, 2016
Gmail
Spam
Actually, gmail does an excellent job filtering out spam for me, but I thought the cartoon was clever.
May 2, 2016
Teacher Appretiation Week in Chicago
I just watched the CBS Evening News coverage of a demonstration by striking teachers in Chicago. One teacher was carrying a large sign that said:
You call this appretiation?
I’m not feelin’ it.
Make of that what you will. It’s sad almost any way you look at it.
May 1, 2016
Granddog
My son and daughter-in-law went on a weekend vacation the last few days and my wife and I volunteered to keep their new dog. He’s a full-grown rescue, not a puppy, and looks like a mid-sized mongrel mutt of black, white, and a little brown. His name is Calvin. My family had dogs when I was little, not always with good results (runaways, one got run over), but it’s been 50 years plus since I had any doggy care and feeding responsibilities. We’ve had cats during my married life.
All the cliches are true. The dog craves affection and is (usually) very obedient. He likes to play. He cringes when scolded. He poops in the yard, or, alternatively, when we walk him. Poop scooping takes some getting used to when you haven’t done it for a few decades. Our cat is pretty affectionate for a cat, but that’s a whole different ballpark. His affection is generally intended to get us to feed him or do some other chore. He’s easier to take care of, that’s for sure. He pees and poops somewhere we’ve never figured out, but it’s not in our yard or in his litter box. The dog ate our hamburger buns when we weren’t looking. It’s a good thing my wife didn’t leave the patties out on the counter. She normally does let them warm up to room temperature before I put them on the barbecue. The cat won’t touch anything we eat, even chicken or fish, although he has brought us mice, rats, birds and lizards, usually disemboweled, occasionally alive.
We’ve really enjoyed the affection and playfulness of the dog this weekend, but we’ll also be glad to let him go back to the kids. If this is practice for grandchildren, I’m all for it.
April 25, 2016
Deadly Straits by R.E. McDermott
Deadly Straits by R.E. McDermott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Tom Dugan, the main character, is an expert on marine shipping and nautical matters in general. He takes a job with his friend Alex, a shipping magnate. Soon we learn that Alex is being extorted by a cabal of evildoers including Iranians, Chechens, and most formidably, a despicable German named Braun who has wormed his way into the company and has a violent thug ready to do imminent harm to Alex’s daughter. The rest of the plot is too complex to explain and I don’t want to provide any spoilers, but it involves a worldwide conspiracy that would affect global commerce disastrously.
Some aspects are terrific. The action scenes, and there are many, are pulse-pounding thrill rides and imaginative scenarios that could only come from an author who knows maritime matters inside and out. In this one sense the author lays legitimate claim to the title of successor to Tom Clancy. The book can also give the reader an education on geography and the importance to us all of the flow of oil and other goods through a few very critical straits. I listened to the Audible edition. The reader was outstanding, mastering perhaps a half dozen accents and doing a fine job of acting as well.
There were a few drawbacks, too, that one should be aware of. The number of characters and locales is huge and it is easy to lose track of who’s who. I wish I had started a spreadsheet at the beginning, but I was too lazy to start over and start writing it all down. I had trouble following the plot and remembering who was a good guy and who was a bad guy, especially since one of the CIA guys acts like a bad guy. Most disturbing to me, at least at first, was the amateurishly demonic way the bad guys were characterized. Every single one was a pederast lusting after underage blond virgins, and of course several characters conveniently had underage daughters to serve as threat targets. All the bad guys kept shooting their own men in the head, too, once their usefulness was over. It must be hard to keep the cabal together with that kind of career advancement plan. It got to be so ludicrous that I literally began trying to predict when the next bad guy was going to get it in the head by his superior or fellow co-conspirator. The constant references to unspeakable acts on the young girls got to be a bit much, too, so if sadistic perversion upsets you, you may want to read actual Tom Clancy instead.
So for the real action fan, this book can be a great read. Don’t worry about the plot so much. Just enjoy the thrill ride in those scenes. For those seeking plausible characters and plot, there are better choices out there.
This audiobook was provided by the author, narrator, or publisher at no cost in exchange for an unbiased review courtesy of Audiobookboom.
April 23, 2016
The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I should have started the series with this book. I love all the ones I’ve read, but this provides a lot of background I didn’t know before. This is the first I knew Harry was “wiry.” I always thought he was a big, tough guy. Tough, yes, but not big. Harry is a homicide detective with LAPD assigned to Hollywood, which is supposedly a bad division, but he thrives there. He has a checkered past – an orphan after his prostitute mother died, some ugly times as a tunnel rat in Vietnam, and a record of insubordination and rule-bending with the department. He’s the ultimate iconoclast always in your face. I wouldn’t like him if I were to meet him in real life. He smokes in non-smoking areas, for one thing. But he’s the kind of cop we all secretly hope is out there “protecting and serving.”
Here he is being hounded by Internal Affairs for reasons we don’t know at first but generally can be summed up as not being a team player. A young man with a history as an addict turns up dead in a drainage pipe. Everyone wants to dismiss it as an OD, but Harry recognizes him as a fellow tunnel rat from Nam and won’t let it go that easily. Soon he finds out that the death is a homicide and somehow ties into an FBI investigation of a bank burglary. He begins working with FBI agent Eleanor Wish and a romance of sorts takes root, although to be clear, Bosch is anything but romantic. Even that relationship is dark and troubled. Harry is a cop’s cop, one who metes out justice, incorruptible while breaking rules at the same time.
What I like best about the Bosch series is the accuracy and detail of how a cop investigates, how a detective thinks, all the little things he notices or knows to avoid. Connelly either has very good police sources or an uncanny imagination bordering on clairvoyance.
Hill is the perfect reader. I always try to get the audiobook form if I can for the Bosch series because he reads them all, or at least all of those I’ve listened to. Amazon video has also made an excellent series called Bosch based on another one of the books in the series.
